DBing, European style

[Papa4Life]

Thanks, Sandi. You're right, what I want most of all is for my kids and my W to be happy. I never stopped loving my wife, even when we were arguing and going through tough times. And this sitch has only made me realize how much I still love her and how much time I've squandered when I should've been working --doing anything humanly possible -- to have a happy, healthy, mutually beneficial M. I'm back to my 180s (which were working), and I've set a number of new goals for myself:
1. Participate in a conflict management workshop.
2. Find a job outside the home.
3. Start piano lessons.
4. Continue IC.
It's not much, but they're realistic, achievable goals for now and I think it will be beneficial for me, no matter what the future holds.

25, thanks for your feedback as well.

Yes, the LL quiz was a mistake. I told her to delete the email without reading it, but she did anyway and sent me the results. Even though she might feel otherwise, I know now that it was a boneheaded move on my part. It makes her feel like I'm pursuing her, when in fact I'm working on detaching.

So, if I'm hearing you right, you feel that perhaps my W has lost respect for me because she feels that my work is less important than hers? I actually think that this has indeed been a factor in her decision. As I've said, we agreed early on that she would focus more on her career and I would do more on the homefront. But as time went by, she felt increasingly free to let me take care of things on days when I should have been working. Translation may not involve taking someone's life in your hands, but a deadline is a deadline and if you tell people "no, I can't handle that assignment for you because my daughter needs tofor a checkup with her orthopedic surgeon today", eventually they are lessinclined to approach you because they figure they're on a deadline too and why waste a phone call? My responses, admittedly, could have been much more tactful. But I just felt thatthere was a great deal of pressure on me, with very little appreciation or thanks.

You're right, I've got to 86 this whimpy, passive-aggressive victim mentality. I think detaching will have a positive effect on this. I want to stand on my own two feet and do what I need to do with some modicum of pride and dignity.